Well, one big aspect is gaming, and in particular consoles at that time only had few cores. That changed few years later with ps4/xb1, but of course it took bit

Well, one big aspect is gaming, and in particular consoles at that time only had few cores. That changed few years later with ps4/xb1, but of course it took bit longer for gamedevs to catch up. It didn't help that it was also time when Intel was at top of their game, still pushing significant single-thread perf improvements. Sandy Bridge, which was Bulldozers main competitor, was exceptionally successful launch on its own right